The final segment on Serious Times

Serious Times, by James Emery White, is a book that deserves more than one reading. It can change our lives if we are willing. Here's the final section of the book.

Next, the author talks about the importance of turning our vocation into a form of worship. He says all secular life should be made into a vocation aimed at God. Whatever we choose to do with our lives, we need to do that with a higher meaning and purpose. He tells a powerful story of William Borden, a student of Yale University who decided to become a missionary. He was a millionaire because he was part of the Borden dairy estate, but he gave it all up to prepare for the mission field. After making this decision, he wrote in his Bible: "No Reserves." He finished his education at Yale with purpose and determination, having established Bible studies and an organization to reach the poor in the surrounding community. When he graduated, he was offered high-paying jobs, but he turned them down to pursue his dream of becoming a missionary. Again, he wrote down two more words in his Bible: "No Retreats." On his way to the mission field, he stopped in Egypt to study Arabic, but after contracting meningitis there, he was dead within a month. Before his death, he had written two more words in his Bible: "No Regrets." Toward the end of the chapter, White has a powerful statement from Thomas Kelly that sums up his point: "The times are too tragic, God’s sorrow is too great, man's night is too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience."

Finally, White says we must become part of the church. Its mandate is to engage in "countersecularization." Through the church we are to reach out to those who are relationally divorced from Christ and turn them into fully-devoted followers. The church is not optional for a follower of Jesus Christ. He lists things that have been entrusted to the church for the sake of the Christian: the very proclamation of the gospel, corporate worship, the sacraments, the new community in Christ, the use of and benefit from spiritual gifts, spiritual care and protection through pastors. We will need to make the church effective, so we must scrutinize "tired methods, inane traditions, and outmoded approaches to outreach." We need to translate the gospel into our generation’s unique cultural context. We began by taking our place in the church as a member. We cannot truly followed Christ apart from community, as indicated in so many verses (Gal. 5:13, 1 Thess. 5:11, Rom. 15:7, Col. 3:13). Jesus believed that the church, demonstrating a community of love and witness, would capture the attention of the world and affirm his message of salvation. In addition, we need a place to develop corporate worship, which helps us encounter and experience God in a way unlike any other. We should also see ourselves as ministers, personally gifted and called by God. Besides this, each of us needs to serve as a missionary; we can see this in Paul’s declaration, "We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Cor. 5:20).

White’s concluding chapter attempts to motivate us. Our culture is getting thin, stripped of so much spiritual depth and weight, but we do little except stand around and wring our hands. In the ancient world Christians stopped infanticide, ended slavery, liberated women, and created hospitals, orphanages and schools. During the medieval era, Christianity kept classical cultural alive through copying manuscripts, building libraries, and creating colleges and universities. Over the last several hundred years, Christians have led the development of science, contributed greatly to political and economic freedom, and provided a tremendous source of inspiration for art, literature and music. But the danger today is the absence of a sense of personal responsibility. We don't think that anything we do will really matter. We become spectators of the world. But White challenges us: "When we live like salt and light, with lives infused by Christ, it affects the world around us in disproportionate measure." Since we live in serious times, we need to undertake a serious life. We know what to do, but the question is whether we will attempt it. I highly recommend everyone to get this book—it’s easy to read, it’s short, and, most of all, it can make a real difference in how we live.